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These are not those moments. Grab a bottle of Bleeprin before reading the list of moments where you wonder what got into the cast and the writers. There's a lot of them...

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Anime Examples

The very second episode has Misty, after sending out a Goldeen to fight Team Rocket, pointing out Water-types can't fight on land. Made brutally jarring by the fact Misty is supposedly the Water-type Gym Leader, which means she should have a degree of expertise on them, and she should know about the existance of Water-types like the Krabby line, Psyduck line, Poliwag line, Squirtle line and Staryu line, the latter of which Misty owns. Made all the more ironic by the fact nearly every Water-type Misty obtains later on actually fights on land.

In the episode "Plant It Now...Diglett Later!", Ash teams up with Team Rocket to protect a group of village people from a marauder attack...until Ash finds out that it's staged. Team Rocket do not find this out, but they are collectively The Chew Toy; when they attack the fake marauders (endangering the Diglett in the process), Ash blasts them off and doesn't bother to explain what's going on. What a jerk!

The fate of Brock's parents is changed in the 4Kids dub. Instead of both parents running away, his father abandoned his family, and his mother died. Not bad in itself; but some seasons later, his mother returns to take over the Gym. Ah! Ghost mom!

That kind of sandwich can roll. But the bouncing that is displayed in that video strongly suggests that you don't want to eat it.

"Who Gets To Keep Togepi?": Ash finds the egg, Brock cares for the egg, and Meowth steals the egg and then cares for it enough to make it hatch into Togepi. But Misty, who does nothing for the egg during the incubation period, shoves everyone out of the way to see the egg hatching, and thus she's the first one Togepi sees, and thus Togepi believes her to be its mother and will belong to no one else. Even though everyone else who debates over it had much more valid reasons for keeping Togepi than Misty.

It looks even worse as the series goes on and both Ash and Brock get their Pokémon eggs (Phanpy for Ash, Happiny for Brock) and not only they hatch and raise them into far more competent battlers than Togepi ever was, but they do it in far less time to boot. Misty had Togepi through nearly half of Kanto, all of Johto, and when she shows back up in Hoenn she still has it, doing nothing but cuddling it the entire time he's with her. It knows only one move, Metronome, which it learned on its own because Misty isn't teaching it anything and when it finally evolves it's in the same episode where it leaves. It's obvious that Togepi's potential was wasted being with Misty.

Consider that Togepi doesn't evolve by experience, but by how much it LOVES ITS TRAINER. So, either a) Misty just damn babied Togepi so much it never really loved her back, or b) If happiness works in the anime like in the games, it's just that Togepi took almost two entire regions (half of Kanto, and then Johto, then the Hoenn cameo) to level up once. And, if I'm remembering correctly, that would make the PROTECTOR OF THE TOGEPI PARADISE a level 6 Togetic with next to no battle experience, only the leader because it's the only one evolved. What will happen if someone tries to take over the Mirage Kingdom again without Ash and friends there to save the day?

The other two trainers of Pallet Town, the long-lost forgotten Bulbasaur and Charmander trainers, are never seen and rarely mentioned. Those two trainers had five badges each, like Gary; Ash only had four.

When Gary and Ash meet at Oak's after their journey to collect badges for the Pokémon League, Oak mentions that the other trainers had given up and gone home already. But they had kept up with Gary for the first five badges!

Speaking of missing people...anyone want to explain where Ash's father is? He's referenced to once in the second episode. ("It took your father three days to go that far!") But...yeah, that's just about it. Not like the father could play an important role to the main character anyway, considering that they both are Pokémon trainers...oh wait.

According to notes from former head writer Takeshi Shudo, Ash's father abandoned his family out of shame when he couldn't become the master trainer he wanted to be. That's why Ash had a negative reaction when his mom compared him to his father. When Takeshi Shudo was booted out midway through Johto, any chances of seeing Ash's father turn up basically vanished.

And there is Word of God that contradicts that as well...let's just say this question is up there with 42 in the meaning of life debate.

First season again. There is a lighthouse with a legendary Pokémon in the lake. Bill cannot identify it even though it is obviously an oversized Dragonite. Made stranger for two reasons:

In the next episode, the Pokédex mentions that a Raichu "has enough electrical charge to knock out a Dragonite". Note, however, that this one is entirely the dub's fault - the original script said 'Indian elephant'.

On the lighthouse door, there are special runes with Pokémon on them. One of them was Mewtwo, who should have only been known to certain Team Rocket members and who is unidentifiable via Pokédex.

What's worse with this is that some of the Pokémon living in said cave were already established to hate or even be harmed by sunlight. If anything, Steven's attack may have been worse than what Team Rocket did.

Well you might argue he was annoyed that the holes had a consequence in disturbing the Pokémon (there's a lot of tunnels in Granite Cave), and keep in mind there was a place up the top which let in sunlight as well, but yeah...pretty annoying. It's baffling how TR need (or needed, as the case may be) to be blasted sky high, especially when it makes little sense. Cue every time their blasting off leaves a hole in a building/mountain/etc., although on the other hand it's not impossible for nature to repair the damage eventually.

How about the fact that this one inconsequential filler episode is the only time Steven ever appeared in the anime? Steven Stone, the Champion from Ruby and Sapphire and the most powerful NPC Trainer in Emerald, is reduced to a freaking character of the day. Worse yet, at the climax of the Team Aqua/Team Magma plot, his role in helping stop the disaster is hijacked by Lance, a character who did not appear in ANY of the Hoenn-based Generation 3 games and has no bearing on their plots whatsoever. They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character barely even begins to cover it.

He also states at one point that Water-types are weak against Flying-types.

From Ash's battle with Fantina:

"Oh no, she's holding a Poké Ball."

It's hard to take POKÉMON PING PONG as seriously as everyone In-Universe does. Some of the Serious Business would be funny, but the writers used it to put Ambipom on a bus after the build-up toward its going to Dawn had been a shining example of their progress.

In the 26th episode of the Diamond/Pearl series, we are introduced to some embarrassing secret from Dawn's past that causes her friend Kenny to teasingly call her "Dee Dee", but we never learn exactly what the incident that gave birth to this nickname was and why Dawn hates it. In episode 161, we finally learn: "Dee Dee" stands for "Diamond Dandruff", and it's because of an incident where, as a kid, Dawn's hair was messed up by a Plusle and Minun so that it stood up and sparkled. That's right, the big reveal is a hair problem and hair problems have happened to Dawn all throughout the series, yet this one out of many hair problems is apparently so much worse and so traumatizing to Dawn that she actually has a phobia of Plusle and Minun as a result! That's...that's stupid. Really stupid.

It's even more of a wall banger when you compare it to Misty's phobia of Gyarados (though, at least Misty got over her fears). Misty feared Gyarados because she accidentally crawled into one's mouth as a baby and it nearly ate her by accident. Keep in mind that Gyarados is a huge sea dragon known for destroying entire cities out of anger. Plusle and Minun? They're obnoxiously adorable, to the point of basically being Pichu with a plus and minus motif. Not exactly in the same boat as an angry sea dragon, wouldn't you say?

The ending of the episode "Arriving In Style". The Rival of the episode, a Rich Bitch glamour queen named Cocoa, loses the Pokémon fashion show to Dawn because Dawn expressed her "inner beauty". Cocoa gets the Accessory Award rather than the prize award because she showed off her accessories rather than her Pokémon. Except that...she did make good use of her Pokémon, whereas Dawn was the one who showed off her accessories. The award winners were switched around! Or, to quote Pokémopolis' summary of the episode:

HANG ON A FUCKING SECOND! SHE DID SHOW OFF HER FUCKING MISMAGIUS! THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF HER PRESENTATION! PARIS EVEN FUCKING TELLS DAWN THAT SHE MADE GREAT USE OF HER ACCESSORIES!

So basically, the poor girl was cheated out of an award she rightfully deserved just so Dawn could get an unearned victory that teaches a Broken Aesop to the audience.

The stint with Anabel. In the games, Anabel, not Brandon, is the leader of the Frontier Brains; there, she is an extremely talented prodigy and has been known to tell people who lose to her that they lack talent straight up. Even when she's defeated, she laughs a creepy laugh. Here, she's a generic good girl with special powers ripped off from Yellow of Pokémon Special and an unrequited crush on Ash so serious that she helps him defeat her after he loses to her the first time. Then Ash moves on, and Anabel and her little crush is never brought up again. The writers derailed a not-so-nice but interesting character so that she would be a shipmate for Ash, even though that ship goes absolutely nowhere. What. the. hell.

It gets even worse in Best Wishes, in which Ash thinks "falling for each other" (in regards to two Pokémon) means that they'll become best friends. It should be noted that Ash's Idiot Hero tendencies have become more played upon in later seasons.

And now in X and Y we have Serena, a traveling companion with Ash. She has a crush on him after meeting him when they were kids at a Pokemon camp. He's completely oblivious to her crush, of course. It's cute, sure, but where exactly do the writers expect to go with this?

That's exactly what happened in the Ash Vs. Kenny battle in Episode 648: right after an awesome battle with Volkner — the strongest Gym Leader in Sinnoh — Ash is challenged by Kenny, a young upstart Coordinator who couldn't even make it into the Grand Festival, and loses horribly. Seriously, why would Ash send a Buizel against an Empoleon? Strong as They Need to Be is in full effect.

"Hell, I would even be able to tolerate him if he had a personality beyond "Jerkassey, self-righteous Villain Sue". I don't even see Paul as a character, to be honest. He's just a plot device without soul, personality, spirit or anything else that makes someone relatable or human. As one of my favorite antagonists in Emperor Mateus (Dissidia Final Fantasy) would refer to the likes of Paul, he's nothing but a "'tool of war' without a will of his own."

Combining both of the above, we have Ash's "six-on-six showdown" with Paul at Snowpoint. Ash had come off a competent win against Candice, while Paul was force-fed his own ego against Pyramid King Brandon. Given Ash's bad track record against Paul prior and the aforementioned fat head of the latter, you'd think the writers (especially Atsuhiro Tomioka, who had the gall to create that Jerk Ass) would throw Ash a bone and have him win this once - and after realizing Ash did what Reggie could not and getting hosed himself trying to achieve on his own, it would completely grind Paul's hubris into dust if his "punching bag" Ash managed to proverbially punch back. Instead, we get treated to some of the most painful nerfing of Ash's competence as he gets wiped two to six. Case in point, Ash had a choice between Staraptor and Grotle when dealing with Honchkrow, Paul's token Flier, and instead of doing what any rational person would do and send out the Pokémon with the fewest disadvantages, he uses Grotle instead. The physical Grass tank, which evolves into a Grass/Ground hybrid, against a Flier, which it previously lost to. Just as stupid as it sounds.

What also makes this annoying, is that he's more or less, a lazy watered-down expy of Silver, who in turn had great development towards why he was a Jerkass and his eventual reformation, HeartGold and SoulSilver only made his character development even better. While Paul was written just to be a Jerkass rival for the sake of being a Jerkass rival.

Probably what makes Paul so detestable, more than his horrible demeanor, it's his Karma Houdini status. Nobody in the anime ever calls him out on anything, and it's pointed out that some people (like Barry) flat-out admire him while Ash constantly tries to become his friend, despite there being no good reason for any of this. His Karma Houdini status is perhaps shown at its fullest in the Tag Battle tournament, where we see Paul's abusive behavior to his Chim Char in full force, being verbally and psychologically abusive and walking out on the match and his own pokemon, in a stadium full of hundreds of spectators, and nobody ever says anything or call him out on it. That alone makes it so the wall and your skull will crumble after so many bangs, and it was just the beginning on the horrible streak that was Paul's run in the show.

May's battle against Solidad, because May was completely overwhelmed by her. The worst part is that this was right after she beat Drew, in that battle she showed how far she's come along as a Coordinator and Combusken learned Overheat to boot, then when she's against Solidad they make her look like a rookie facing a pro all because Solidad studied her battling style and May barely does anything about it. She had every right to cry afterwards, the writers totally screwed her over.

They didn't show much of that battle. The writers will create filler episode after filler episode (to show new Pokémon, bide time for new games to come out, etc...), but won't give a full episode to show an important battle involving a main character.

Why didn't the writers have Ash use Noctowl against Chuck? It has super-effective Flying moves, and it knew Confusion, which is also super effective against Fighting-types. The writers didn't learn their lesson with Ash's bird Pokémon until Swellow, but this is ridiculous. Would giving Noctowl screen time hurt, especially when it has little to begin with? Even worse, his Noctowl is shiny so you'd think it would get more attention.

This happened a lot for Trainer's Choice - whoever wrote the early entries had obviously done zero research. They only started to make some sense partway through Season 8, after which they were dropped altogether.

Pokémon Chronicles example: The dub saying that Ritchie has an Eevee and Casey had a Magmar and a Rapidash. This is only in the dub.

Cynthia spent her previous episodes (and still afterwards) talking about how every meeting is special and creates a bond, and how even enemies can find value in each other. Then in the Galactic finale she proceeds to stand there and do absolutely nothing while Cyrus deletes himself from the universe.

Also, Cynthia's aforementioned philosophy in this anime (which wasn't present in the games) is used to make Cynthia pretty much a canon Draco in Leather Pants fangirl for Paul, doing nothing when she sees his abuse of Chimchar firsthand due to her bullshit philosophy, and in Paul's last appearance, praising him and his "bond" with Ash (what, is she a Yaoi Fangirl too?) which apparently changed him, though the show gives us little beyond its word to make us believe he's changed. Thank you, anime, you made a cool character in the games one of the most annoying in the show.

Ash's battle with Tobias is often considered to be one with the fandom. Mostly because Tobias has a Latios and a Darkrai. Now, granted, trainers using Legendaries is nothing new (Noland used an Articuno he had befriended and Pyramid King Brandon had Regirock, Registeel, and Regice). However, those characters actually had backstory and were established to have worked hard to obtain/befriend said Legendaries. Tobias? He's not given any backstory at all and it's implied he's always had Darkrai and Latios. Plus, it doesn't help that he's a minor character whom we'll never see again. If he had only oneLegendary and if he had some semblance as to how he obtained it, that would've been much better than having twoLegendaries without any reason other than "hey, why not".

Admittedly, this is sort of reaching, but this battle honestly came off as kind of a slap in the face to the people who hope Ash will be allowed to win a title someday. Seriously, each of the two Pokémon Tobias uses wipes out half of Ash's team. It came off like the writers were just too lazy to write in another character to do it, so instead of having Ash lose to a realistic or even semi-human opponent, they have a guy who was tailor-made for the sole purpose of destroying him.

Another absurd example: During the episode where Ash and friends arrive to the island to enter said Pokémon League, you can see one trainer with a Heatran◊...neither trainer nor his LEGENDARY Pokémon show up again...out of all the Pokémon you could have had appear for a one off appearance for trainers that will most likely never appear again after one short appearance, you make it a legendary!?

One episode featured an Officer Jenny saying that "Pokémon can't understand human speech". Despite the fact that, you know, not only do trainers talk to their Pokémon all the time, but that's how BATTLES work with trainers telling their Pokémon which moves to use...(this may have been dub only, however).

It doesn't help that Team Rocket's Meowth, Mewtwo, Aaron's Lucarionote (Incidentally, one of Lucario's Pokédex entries mentions that it's capable of understanding human speech.) and some of the Legendaries not only understand it, but speak it too.

It still seems to be canon that even the least intelligent Pokémon are as smart as dogs. Even Pokémon like Slowpoke and Magikarp have working intelligence, albeit extremely slowly-working intelligence.

In the episode featuring the Gym Leader Erika, she bans Ash from challenging her Gym (in the original Japanese version, it's made particularly clear that it's under Erika's personal orders that Ash be banned); in Brock's first appearance (in the fifth episode) he says that as a Gym Leader, he must accept all challengers, a rule mentioned by several other Gym Leaders throughout the show (INCLUDING Erika, who says after the fact that it's her "duty under the League rules"). If that wasn't bad enough, there's the reason why Ash was banned in the first place: it's because he doesn't like perfume. Earlier that day, Ash and Co. visited a perfume store, which just happens to be owned by the Celadon Gym, where he states to the effect that perfume is for wussies, causing not only the employees, but Misty, Brock, and even Pikachu to flip their wig. Granted, Ash was a bit of a jerk about it, but it wasn't enough to justify an outright ban. This makes Erika come off as not just a petty bitch, but also a wildly unprofessional Gym Leader. Equally stupid is the fact that neither Misty or Brock (both Gym Leaders themselves) called her on this.

Another huge wallbanger in that episode: Gloom's Story-Breaker Power, a bigger load of bs than all of Ash's AssPulls combined. The power? It stinks. It stinks so bad than any Pokémon will faint instantly the moment it's in it's presence. Worse still, this happened right when Ash was kicking Erika's ass with Charmander, and knocking that smug jackass down a peg. Oh, and this episode came right after "Primeape Goes Bananas" which ended in a huge Crowning Moment of Awesome for Ash, him having shown an impressive level of bravery and commitment as a Trainer. Seriously, the very episode after he stared amd beat down a raging Primeape who had terrorized the hell out of him and was at his best, this episode humiliates him, and sets up a downright impossible situation to counter right when he's starting to win... Bull. Shit.

While seeing Ash and Pikachu drop in competence between the end of one series and the beginning of another is just accepted as a normal part of the show, nothing can justify the drop between the end of Diamond and Pearl and Best Wishes. Ash loses to Trip, a starting trainer who's never battled before. Sure, Pikachu couldn't use his Electric attacks, but he's beaten plenty of opponents without using those moves in the past.

It's not just Pikachu. Soon after that battle, Ash goes out looking for new Unova Pokémon and comes across a Deerling. For some reason, despite having caught well over thirty Pokémon and having taken part in league tournaments in four different regions, Ash still has to be told that you have to weaken a Pokémon before capturing it. The very thing he had to remind May and Dawn about in the past! May and Dawn were rookies at the time they made this mistake, so they get a pass, but for Ash to do it so late, there's just no excuse.

From Bad to Worse in a recent episode: Ash recently has a 5-on-5 battle with Trip and LOST 5 to 2!!!. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This is without a doubt his worst defeat yet. Pikachu has his Electric moves back and Ash has all the Unova starters plus the regional bird and without a doubt has a start only the rest of us could dream of. But then he goes losing to some noob in a matter that is ludicrous. The best part? Trip didn't even reveal his last two Pokémon. At least with Ash's 6-on-6 with Paul both teams were revealed.

That pattern destroys any tension of the rivalry. Rivalries are no fun if they are one sided until the last minute. And speaking of inflated ego Trip taunted Ash on how lousy he was as a trainer after the battle (granted if you are a noob and you just beat a guy who had four generations of experience chances are you would have an ego boost too). But the authors are unlikely to change him considering their opinion of us since they think all our rivalries should be one-sided, we don't know basic type matchups, abilities, move combos and tactics so we can relate to the main character we have here, which is kind of a Wall Banger in that regard.

Well, we've had Trip later on mellowing out into a more fleshed-out and believable character and a full six Pokémon being revealed, not to mention his being wiped out in the first round of the 2 Club Tournaments AND the preliminaries of the Unova League, so there's that. But let's just hope they don't pull the above fiasco out of their rear-ends again, or there's going to be Hell to pay.

This one's explainable due to errors in translation. The original Japanese of that scene had Ash telling Bulbasaur to 'blow away the spores'. In the Japanese games, Whirlwind is called Blow Away instead, so one mistranslation later...

There was a Master Quest episode (the first parter of Ash and Gary's 6 on 6 battle two parter that Ash won) where there was a minor scene that had Harrison's (a minor character for the Silver Conference arc) Sneasel win a battle aganist a Machamp. The announcer and even Machamp himself say Machoke in the dub. WHAT THE HELL 4KIDS?!

The recent Brock special has raised a lot of ire. Why? Well, it's because a Nurse Joy has a Latias. As mentioned in the Tobias example above, trainers having Legendaries is nothing new. However, like Tobias, there is no explanation as to why Nurse Joy has a Latias. And she's a Recurring Character to boot. Look, Pokémon, if you want trainers to have Legendaries now, fine, but please tell us how they obtained said Legendaries or why they have them in the first place.

The first season episode "Challenge of the Samurai" has always infuriated me. Basically, Ash has just battled a wild Weedle. Just as he's about to catch it, a Samurai shows up and challenges him, completely ignoring the fact that Ash is a little busy right now. Thanks to Samurai's distraction, Ash loses Weedle, and later on after they are attacked by Beedrill, Samurai insults Ash, calling him a novice and blaming him for the whole thing because he didn't finish what he started. Hello, Samurai? If you had kept your mouth shut for FIVE LOUSY SECONDS and let him finish what he was doing, none of this would have happened! The worst bit? At the end, Ash has to learn that he has to finish what he starts, even though (as previously mentioned) he would have done that if Samurai hadn't interrupted him. It's a good thing this is the episode where Metapod evolves to Butterfree, or this episode would be part of my personal discontinuity.

And Samurai had not just challenged Ash on words in the middle of the capture. HE THREATENED ASH WITH A KATANA. Oh, and Ash is also blamed for losing Metapod on a run from the Beedrill, even though he was still going to save the mon. Sure, it's not like he would be killed by a bunch of giant bees with drills if he stopped for a moment to pick Metapod up!...

To make it worse (concerning losing the Metapod), is that, in a later season, Ash is separated from one of his Pokémon due to a raging current and is ready to charge right in to rescue it. Based upon the lesson from the above episode, you'd think that was the right thing to do. Unfortunately, seemingly because it's Ash doing it, it is the wrong choice and he is held back and chided by his friends for his recklessness.

Two similar and incredibly infuriating examples of Ash's Informed Wrongness. Now, granted Ash could be a bit of an arrogant clod, bragging about his badges when they're given to him is just plain douchey. Misty's attempts at calling him out, however, make her look even worse, mostly since all of her points are wrong. In Mystery at The Lighthouse, for example, she points out all of Ash's Pokémon followed him, which isn't true for Butterfree, who he caught as a Caterpie, and Pidgeotto, which he caught with his Caterpie, and Pikachu, being his starter, doesn't count. Even Bulbasaur, who agreed to go with him, did so under the condition that he beat it first, making it no different from a genuine Pokémon battle.

As if that weren't bad enough, the episode directly after has her being even more of an asshole, picking a fight in a freaking hospital because Ash's arrogant attitude was annoying her. Like before, her points were still inaccurate, with her dismissing his badges as "pity badges". Now, while Ash certainly didn't earn those badges the traditional way, some might even say he didn't earn 'em at all, neither of the reasons(respect for the compassion Ash showed by refusing to battle on and hurt Onix, and gratitude for saving all the Pokémon in the damn gym) were pity. Now one can't blame her for being a little ticked off, but there's a fine line between getting fed up with his attitude and being a petty, snotty little bitch. You know what, Misty? If you feel Ash didn't deserve the badge, CHALLENGE HIM TO A FUCKING MATCH. Prove that you would've won. Don't start a fight in a freaking hospital because you're still in a pissy mood about him getting your gym's badge.

The two Poké Ringer episodes. Now, don't get me wrong, it's a nice bit of world building for Pokémon, but what really irks me is Jame's skill level between the two episodes. In the first episode this was featured in (AG080), James is very competent, making it through to the finals against Ash, which comes down to the wire, where Ash and Swellow win by the skin of their teeth. Come DP118, James is decimated, failing to get through Round 1. Why? Just… WHY?!

Another one: DP118's climax is essentially a repeat of AG080's climax. Ash's Pokémon evolves to final evolution, and wins by slapping the ring onto the goal with it's wing. Did the writers just get lazy?

"Pikachu, the horn!" ...You all know what I'm talking about. The Anime actually reverses type matchups mercilessly, to the point where if one Pokémon has a type disadvantage, it's safe to say it will win. And the dub can't be called out on this alone. It came like that from Japan.

I won't say it's not objectionable, but in a manner of speaking it makes SOME sense (at least, back when it aired) - the anime seemed to be implying that using electric attacks directly on Rhydon's horn would send electricity directly INTO Rhydon's body, bypassing the Ground-type elements because there's flesh and bone underneath the armour. The REAL Wallbanger is that after the games introduced Rhydon's "Lightningrod" ability (which the horn was directly referred to as by Brock), the anime simply retconned this episode to match instead of any good justification (as seen in DP050). If they wanted some explanation like the volcanic heat lowering Rhydon's defences, they should have USED it...for that matter, how come a Fire-type Gym Leader like Blaine was using a Rhydon instead of an Arcanine or something? (I know Gym Leaders can have one or two mons to mix-up their teams despite being specialists, like Candice, but since it necessitated one of the most controversial moments in the series you can put this down to Early Installment Weirdness at BEST).

Any time they ignore type match-ups or find some way to circumvent them in general.

Time has shown that Early Installment Weirdness definitely has nothing to do with it. The writers continue to do this even in 2015, as shown in an XY episode where this happens not once, but twice, as we see a Rhyperior hitting Jessie's Ghost type Pumpkaboo with Horn Drill, a Normal type attack, and then Pikachu hits the same Rhyperior with a Thunderbolt, despite Rhyperior being a Ground type. It's like the writers don't even care at this point.

During Best Wishes, after Giovanni ends up temporarily busy due to complications to his master plan, his secretary tells Jessie, James, and Meowth to "do what they want". First of all, I don't care how lacking in faith she is in the gang, it is very unprofessional of her to tell them to essentially piss off. Worse yet, what do they do when told this? They go back to trailing and getting their butts kicked by the twerp! Why? After a bajillion episodes of failure, they finally start getting back into the good graces of the boss and proving themselves as good Team Rocket agents, proving they don't need to go after the twerp's Pikachu to please him. So why are they going back to a strategy they know will get them back to being the laughing stock of their organization? Now, thankfully, this only lasts ten episodes and they have gone back to their actual criminal operation away from Ash and co., but one still wonders what the point in this period was. Even if you could justify it by saying they are trying to drop off the police radar, there are other, more productive ways of doing it.

Ash’s and Ritchie’s battle in the episode Friend and Foe Alike, not because Ash lost, but because everything goes wrong for Ash for the worst possible reasons. First, Ritchie’s Butterfree uses Sleep Powder on Ash's Squirtle, putting it to sleep. Then the referee declares that Squirtle has fainted and is unable to battle. This is the most blatantly stupid thing a referee has done on this show. Sleep does not equal fainting. If that were so the move Rest would be unusable. Besides, there have been instances of Pokémon falling asleep during battle on this show without being eliminated making this inconsistent. I honestly think that referee should have been fired. Also it turns out that most of Ash’s Pokémon are way too tired to battle effectively due to dealing with Team Rocket earlier. Pidgeotto even had to fly Ash over to get to the battle in time. Ash is therefore forced to use the only Pokémon for the battle that isn’t tired from the Team Rocket Fiasco; unfortunately it’s Charizard. At first, Charizard does good against Ritchie's team, however at one point Charizard basically just stops battling, lays down in the middle of the battle and forfeits, costing Ash the match. I know that Ash wasn't the smartest guy in the world, particularly in the earlier seasons but most of the problems in this battle were due to bad luck. He did not deserve to lose in such a humiliating way.

The reasons for why he had to stop Team Rocket prior to the match make it worse. The only reason his Pokémon were tired was because he had to use them to stop Team Rocket from stealing a large number of Pokémon and then use Pidgeotto carrying a balloon to get back. That's normally not so strange but this was at a major tournament. Where there are clearly a large number of Officer Jennies. Where several of those Officer Jennies have stopped Team Rocket in the past but were unable to apprehend them. Where was the security? Why wasn't the place swarming with Officer Jennies checking every single vehicle, merchant and store? What kind of idiotic system do they have where a boy can do a better job than the official security? The only reason he lost that match was because they weren't doing their job. Even if he was too much an idiot hero to explain the circumstances and ask for the match to be rescheduled wasn't anyone interested in why he got there so late and in a Team Rocket balloon? Wasn't the audience interested in knowing why they had been forced to stay there for hours?

Pokémon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew: First and foremost, Kidd Summers. She contributes very little to the plot except inadvertently making things worse (Mew taking off with Pikachu and Meowth, causing the Tree of Beginning's system to attack), and this movie could easily be done without her involvement because after all, this is a movie about Lucario, right? Later in the halfway point, Lucario has a minor hissy fit after he and Ash both have respective flashbacks of Sir Aaron and Pikachu, and all Ash does is get infuriated by it. Ash, you've spent an entire day with Lucario (which is plenty of time to have Character Development); you should be more understanding than that!

The plot of the two-part Mistralton Gym episodes in Best Wishes. Skyla suffers some Character Derailment through adaptation. In the games, she's an upbeat nice girl who is more than happy with her Gym Leader duties and is positively portrayed. In the anime, she's a lazy, insufferably smug, stupidJerkass who has grown to hate being a Gym Leader due to it taking time away from flying airplanes, and thus runs simulations in her head on how a battle would go to determine whether a challenger gets a badge or not. What's worse, the characters who fiercely oppose her in this are Cilan, Ash, and her grandfather Miles. Not Iris...just the male characters. All the while, she continues to act like an arrogant harpy who deserves to get her ass kicked by one of the opposing male characters and proven wrong on her views. She pretty much gets redeemed in the second episode but oh, Skyla...you did not deserve this treatment the anime writers have given you. Erika would sympathize...

The ending of the Twist Mountain two-parter has one: the character-of-the-day takes the Pokémon that was revived from a fossil and goes back to its own time with it, then gives it the key to the time portal again, which is supposed to close some sort of time loop. The problem is that the Pokémon had EVOLVED by this point, and yet its fossil that was found in the present day is that of it's pre-evolution form! This should change history entirely but it's never addressed.

Ash in general has been suffering from loss of personality, ever since the end of the Johto arc. Granted, this is Pokémon, but Ash's interest in anything not Pokémon related has slowly seeped into his character for years now, and it's gotten to the point where he is simply there, and that anyone who's even seen him before can predict his actions before they happen. In short, he's more or less turned into nothing but a bland, can do no wrong, always moral Gary Stu with nothing resembling depth as a character.

The writers also seem to have no clue what they want to do with Ash. For a while, Ash would wildly fluctuate between the Hot-BloodedIdiot Hero that he was in Kanto and most of Johto, but other times he'll show that he's matured into a calmer, more cool-headed character. The fact that he can be either in any given episode tends make it look like the writers have gotten bored with him and his more hot-blooded moments are just a nod to a time when he was an actual character.

Since Ash came to Unova, he checked on his Pokédex Pokémon he already checked in older episodes. WHY?

In fact, in one particularly egregious example, Ash scans both a Corphish and a Buizel, Pokémon that Ash has personally caught and trained himself.

Also he checked Palpitoad twice, and the second time was in the episode AFTER THE ONE WHERE HE SAW IT FOR THE FIRST TIME. Ditto for Unfezant.

For a different region, Ash scanned a Snorlax in a Hoenn episode...despite owning and training one himself.

Max's existence. There is nothing particularly wrong with the character himself, but all his focus episodes and character development revolve around the fact that he can't wait until he's old enough to go on his own journey. All of those episodes and development are completely moot seeing how he lives in a world where you're forever stuck at the age you're in the moment you meet Ash.

From Mewtwo Returns, the story cutting away from the battle between the clones and Giovanni, just as it's about to begin. It's not totally integral to the plot, but, at the time, there was never a moment where the heroes had ever gone toe to toe with what is probably the animé's first major villain. Worse still, the Johto arc was arguably the last time, at least until Best Wishes, that Giovanni could be seen as an actual threat to the heroes, so this comes off as a major anti-climax. The writers could have at least added five minutes to the movie for this battle.

Nearly anything and everything Cameron says and does. Examples include, but are not limited to:

Thinking the Unova League took place in Johto (specifically, Ecruteak City).

Thinking he only needed 7 badges to compete in the Unova League.

Having never heard of the word "register," thinking it was a new Pokémon.

And the worst of it all being he's the one the writers choose to beat Ash in the regional tournament. In the very same battle where, as already mentioned, he only had FIVE Pokémon. Fans are still griping at how the writers keep making Ash lose yet another major tournament, but now add this detail to the equation.

The wasted potential "Episode N" had regarding the Legendary Pokémon featured. One of the biggest aspects of Reshiram in the games is its rivalry with Zekrom. But, guess what? Zekrom isn't featured in this multi-part story (it's mentioned, sure, but doesn't have a major role). What? They could've had an epic battle between the two dragons and instead they have Pikachu pull the "Thunder Armor" gimmick again to instantly cure Reshiram of its hypnosis. I get that there was already a Reshiram VS Zekrom battle in the 14th movie, but there's no reason why they couldn't of featured one here as well. Why couldn't Ash have befriended (or possibly even captured) Zekrom and had it aid him in battle against Reshiram? Or, heck, why couldn't Iris (a Trainer who specializes in DRAGON Pokémon) befriend/capture Zekrom and used him to fight as well? It's a shame all we got was a Brainwashed and Crazy Reshiram that was easily defeated by the show's "God ModeChu."

The 16th Pokémon movie, Mewtwo's Awakening, features a huge wallbanger involving the mutated feline. It turns out that the Mewtwo featured in this movie is a different Mewtwo than the one featured in Mewtwo Strikes Back and Mewtwo Returns. That. Doesn't. Make. Any. Sense! The anime has explicitly stated in the past that the original Mewtwo is the only one of his species and that nobody (save for a handful of the main characters) is even aware of his existence. There is no logical reason why they couldn't have just used the original Mewtwo instead of creating a new one for this movie. Now, there have been multiples of Legendary Pokémon before (IE: Lugia is shown to have a breeding population). But Mewtwo is supposed to be unique. What's the point in making another one?

For bonus points, consider what Mewtwo is: a biological clone made by using Mew's DNA and augmenting it further beyond that. The cloning process was sufficiently unstable that all other attempts at doing so were short-lived, and tragically so. Much of Mewtwo's biology (height, coloration, neck, "hands" and feet) does not resemble Mew at all. And, of course, Mewtwo ended up destroying the facility and the people responsible for his creation shortly afterward. In short, he is an unnatural and very likely arbitrary Pokémon with No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup. Even if someone found out about the original cloning experiment and attempted to reproduce it themselves, why would the result be so similar? At best, you'd expect minor differences in the procedure to result in...you know, that other Mewtwo forme this movie almost certainly exists to advertise. But the movie character can switch between that forme and the Mewtwo appearance we all know, meaning that somehow someone reproduced the undocumented experiment and the result looked exactly the same.

Indeed, the new Mewtwo seems little more than a deliberate middle finger by the writers to all Pokémon fans over the age of 9.

The worst part is that the plot inconsistencies and retreads surrounding the creation of this Mewtwo could probably be forgiven if the writers had actually done something with her character. The idea of a new Mewtwo with a kinder personality had the potential for a neat story, and, had it been done well, would have been a nice spin on an iconic Pokémon. Instead, the writers do little to follow up on such an idea, leaving fans to wonder why the writers either didn't just use the original in the first place or fully flesh out the new Mewtwo's character.

This also leads to another major problem with this concept. The only character who would have the knowledge to create genetically-modified clones is the Mewtwo from the first movie. However, the original Mewtwo is never mentioned in this film. Ash never mentions meeting another Mewtwo before despite him being one of the few people who knows he exists. Why couldn't the writers of had the first Mewtwo create a clone of himself out of loneliness (since he's the only one of his kind) as a backstory for the new Mewtwo? It would've made far more sense than to just do a watered-down version of the first Mewtwo's origin and pretend the original never existed.

With the introduction of the Mega Evolution mechanic in hindsight some of this can finally make sense. There are two Mega Evolution forms for Mewtwo. In the games a Mewtwo would be able to assume either form depending on version and Mewtwonite Megastone they have equipped. For the anime, they probably figured it would make more sense to have the very feminine-looking Y form go to a separate Mewtwo and one that has a strong female feel to her (regardless of genderless status in the games). The Mewtwo X form has a strong masculine feel and this troper personally thinks it fits the original Mewtwo better than the Y form. However, this was not something they could reveal at the point of the sixteenth movie's premier. We are still given no explanation as to how those scientists got a how-to manual for creating another Mewtwo, as well as fresh Mew DNA to monkey with.

In the episode "Climbing the Tower of Success!" Ash, Iris, Cilan, and Stephan decide to compete in a local tournament. Stephan wins by virtue of the judge eliminating people for the most contrived reasons, Cilan get eliminated even though he performed the best in that challenge because of the judge's personal bias. In is the last leg of the tournament: it was a race up the tower while making sure your litwick shaped candle doesn't go out. Ash get eliminated because his candle was blown out by a real litwick that everyone thought was candle, but everyone laughs it off. If that's not bad enough, there's the annoying kid they add, who served no purpose to the plot or had any character development. He thinks he's better than everyone even though he blatantly cheats in every challenge. The whole tournament was rigged from the start, but everyone acts like its not big deal.

If it's one thing the Pokemon Anime has become infamous for, it's having wasted potential for interesting concepts regarding plot and characters. And, nowhere is this more evident than the ending of the episode Hocus Pokémon and the episodes that come after it. Why? Well, at the end of the episode, Ash is transformed into a Pikachu by a magical spell. There were so many possibilities that this concept could've used. Ash could've learned what it was like to be a Pokémon, he could've had new ways to bond with his Pikachu, and tons of other potential storylines centered around his transformation. But, instead of anything remotely resembling a good storyline using this concept being used, Ashachu is instantly changed back to normal only one episode later. Yup, you read that right. The writers chose to just instantly hit the Reset Button instead of coming up with any sort of plot surrounding Ash transforming into a Pikachu. We don't even get any episodes or scenes that flashback to Ashachu, nor is it ever mentioned again. That's just lazy writing at its finest.

Similar to Dawn's fear of Plusle and Minun, we have Iris' fear of Ice type Pokémon. Unlike Misty, who's fear of Bug-types is similar to what many people in real life face AND was more or less due to their appearances (most of them are huge creatures with poison, stingers, and other dangerous parts, as well as being much larger than Real Life bugs, and on top of that, some, like Beedrill, are extremely territorial), and May's fear of Tentacool which has a very valid trauma behind it, Iris is only afraid of them because their type just happens to be Ice, no matter how cute and/or goofy looking they are (in one episode, she was afraid of Vanillite, of all things). Even if she is a Dragon-type trainer (Dragon-types are weak against Ice), this makes little sense, especially in that she seems to act as if Ice-types are out to get her. This was pointed out as silly in-universe by Trip (who owns a Vanillite), who stated that Dragon-types are weak to themselves, but Iris doesn't have a problem with Axew. One must wonder what will happen once she meets a Fairy-type...

At least that fear was explained, no matter how weakly. Cilan's fear of Purrloins remained a Noodle Incident to the very end, with the last episode it was featured in ending just as he was about to explain it. A chance for Character Development gone down the drain.

The second episode of the XY season, "Lumiose City Pursuit", ends with Ash trying to pacify a Garchomp on top of Prism Tower (the Kalos equivalent of the Eiffel Tower). After he succeeds, disaster strikes as part of the tower crumbles and Pikachu is sent falling. Ash's immediate reaction is to jump off the tower after him. This part should be a wall banger by itself, what with Ash's complete lack of ability to save himself or even Pikachu after his jump (he doesn't even have another Pokémon on hand that can fly or use psychic moves or vine whips or anything else that could help), but knowing that he is Hot-Blooded and cares deeply for Pikachu means we can understand his kneejerk reaction. Disaster is averted when the two are caught by an unexpectedly helpful Mega Blaziken. (And we'll set aside the physical problems that could cause, or the fact that Mega Blaziken could have caught Pikachu even without Ash's help.) No, the true Wall Banger is that, once everything is said and done, everyone else who saw the incident has nothing but positive opinions of his hasty actions that, in anything less than this idealistic universe, would have resulted in two fatalities instead of one. It's hard not to sympathize, but to expect viewers to approve, or possibly even desire to emulate...

Contests, especially in Sinnoh, got on my nerves fairly a lot. For example, why do they have complete rookies compete with veterans? They will get utterly curb-stomped. Why not create the seperate Contests for starting trainers and those who have an experience? Also, in one episode Dawn does not even get to the second round, simply because her Ampibom was completely overshadowed by his own attacks in a performance rounds. Even Zoey chews her out for it. However there are examples in almost all contest in anime, of performances which completely overshadowed a Pokémon with how flashy they were and nobody said anything bad about them! For example, in one contest May´s Eevee used Dig and then Shadow ball from the holes to create fireworks. You could not see Eevee for the entire duration of his performance, yet May continued to the second round! Or Lila, Coordinator that appeared in episode 95 of Diamond and Pearl, had her Cherrim create a big flower in a sky, that completely overshadowed the Grass Pokémon and she gets a PRAISE about how she showed her Pokémon unique qualities! This was such an stupid rule, completely non-consistent with the rest of the anime portrayal of contests, and was just used as a plot point to make Dawn lose once again! (And to showcase Zoey´s mastery in contests, because we are totally not beat over the head with it every time she appears!) Even I felt bad for poor Dawn, and I hated her guts as a kid!

In "The Punchy Pokémon," Ash has Pikachu try to box Hitmonchan, rather than rely on his tried-and-true Electric Type moves. While clearly one of his more boneheaded moves, it's made worse by the fact that neither Misty nor Brock think to call him out on his monumental error in judgement, making this a case of triple boneheadedness.

Game Examples

In Pokémon Red and Blue, the move Karate Chop that most Fighting-type Pokémon start out with was classified as a Normal-type move.

Some Pokémon are incapable of learning certain moves despite their bodies being seemingly perfectly suited for that move:

Lickitung, a huge lizard-like Pokémon with a tongue that is more than twice the length of its body didn't start out with or learn the move LICK! They fixed this in future generations, but those mistakes are highly noticeable.

Charizard, a half Flying-type that resembles a dragon and is big enough to carry a Trainer on its back, couldn't learn Fly. In fact, Charizard could not learn any flying moves until Yellow.

In the first games, Ghost-type moves are completely ineffectual against Psychic-type Pokémon, despite in-game dialogue specifically saying otherwise. Not only is this a case of the game outright lying to the player, but it means that the only moves super-effective against Psychics are Bug-type, of which there are only three (that few Pokémon can learn), which in itself is another Wall Banger. This was the result of a glitch, but given the importance of type advantages in this game you'd think they'd catch such a glaring error.

And just to top of the concussion, even if Ghost-type moves WERE super effective, this would leave the list of moves in the first game that were good against psychic types as follows: Leech Life and Lick (both extremely weak), Confuse Ray and Nightshade (one does no damage and the other does damage based on levels, so wouldn't be affected by being super-effective anyway) and Pin Missile and Twinneedle (the latter being exclusive to Beedrill and the former to Beedrill and a higher-level-than-reasonably-expected-when-it's-needed Jolteon). In other words, the only Pokémon who, practically speaking, had any useful moves in a Psychic battle was Beedrill, who is not only a somewhat weak Pokémon in his own right, but is a Bug/POISON type, rendering him, you guessed it, weak against Psychic-types. Can we say Game Breaker? The Psychics were so overpowered that an entirely new type (the Dark type) had to be introduced the following generation so that they would be more balanced.

In the second Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games, the freaking Perfect Apples incident. You're supposed to go to Apple Forest to collect Perfect Apples because Team Skull ate the stock. When you get there, of course Team Skull defeats you and steals the stock. At least Chatot would listen, right? WRONG! Instead, he blames you and your partner, and he punishes you by going without dinner and facing the wrath of the Guildmaster. Oh, and the scene with the other guild members sending their food to you the next day because you're hungry did not ease the pain! It's that bad! Even worse, even without the "he said she said" with Team Skull, just from the evidence that can be readily ascertained from basic observation, the basic adventure boils down to "we went to where the Perfect Apples grow and the trees had been stripped bare". Hardly the kind of experience that warrants punishment, let alone being declared failures.

What makes it even stupider is after you say that you didn't get any Apples because Team Skull took them all, Wigglytuff starts to cry. You're saved from a temper tantrum by Team Skull coming in...WITH A PERFECT APPLE. One must wonder, where did they get that? It couldn't possibly have been FROM THE TREE, HUH?!

Not to mention Chatot, who is the supposed "Brains" behind the guild, not only doesn't believe your story, but believes Team Skull completely, despite being ridiculously obviously evil, combined with the above. This is probably the biggest example of the Idiot Ball in the entire game.

A thud-worthy moment made its way into Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia, combining Hostage for MacGuffin with But Thou Must. After clearing the Hippowdon Temple and gathering the Yellow Gem after a tough Pokémon capture, you leave the temple and receive a "vicemail" from Heath of Team Dim Sun, who had been giving you fake distress signals throughout your mission shortly after Keith disappeared. You've been suspicious of him all along (especially since he speaks You No Take Candle), but when he asks you to exchange the Yellow Gem for Keith, the game won't proceed unless you say "yes", and Keith isn't in that much danger anyway (he's tied up, but the Dim Sun copter is just a few feet off the ground, so it isn't like they could have dropped or shot him or anything). So now, you've gotta go halfway across Almia to get that thing back again!

Flareon has remained the Tier-Induced Scrappy of the Eeveelutions since Pokémon Red and Blue, where it was unable to take advantage of its monstrous (physical) Attack because of its Fire-typing and pathetic physical movepool. In Pokemon Diamond And Pearl, however, the physical-special split of typings has resulted in a powerful physical Fire move known as Flare Blitz. Because Flareon is tied with Ho-oh for the highest Attack of all Fire-types, not to mention the move had Flareon's name on it, it was sure to throw Flareon the bone it truly needed. As of Pokémon Black and White , Flareon has been denied Flare Blitz for the fourth time in a row. At least Entei got it. Eventually.

Five times as of Black 2 and White 2. At least PART of the problem lies in the fact that Flareon's pre-evolution is a Normal-type that can turn into six other evolutions. I mean, if Eevee could get Flare Blitz through breeding, then there would just be arguing over why Vaporeon, Leafeon and Glaceon can use it as well.

In Gen. 6, Flareon FINALLY gets Flare Blitz...right in the same generation that Entei gained Sacred Fire, which doesn't hit as hard, but trades off recoil for a 1 in 2 chance of burning it. Flareon's fans are happy, but it still pales to other options!

The original Pokémon Ranger has a big one in the "Four Challenges" level. After you've beat the first three (annoying as hell) Pokémon, your partner, after being SPECIFICALLY TOLD not to do all four chambers, suggests the two of you go into the fourth "just to check it out". You are not allowed to say "No, Lunick/Solana, I'm tired of these stupid ruins full of irritating 'tests'. Let's go home." No, you have to go in there, and you have to explore it to your idiot partner's heart's content. Now, it's a lava level, suggesting the challenge Pokémon's a Fire-type. Keep that in mind. You get to the back of the chamber and find the Go Rock Quads with a Charizard. You know, Fire-type? You know by now that these four aren't to be trusted, so their "oh, this poor Charizard is suffering" story is weaker than tissue paper. Even though it's so freaking obvious to the player this is the challenge and things will end badly, YOU CAN'T LEAVE UNTIL YOU CAPTURE THE CHARIZARD.

Another Black and White example. Each one of Rotom's alternate forms have the type of their unique move replacing their Ghost typing. Rotom-S became Electric/Flying-type, but still has Levitate as an ability. See the problem?

Delibird earns the prize of most pointless Dream World ability by getting Insomnia when it already has Vital Spirit, which is the same thing. Couldn't it have gotten an ability that would make it less of a Joke Character than it already is?

Insomnia being a Dream World ability is a deranged concept in and of itself.

Similarly, Frillish and Jellicent can be obtained in Black 2 and White 2 on certain days with their hidden ability. And what would that be? Damp, which prevents the foe from using Explosion or Selfdestruct, which they're already immune to as Ghost-types. While it can serve possibly a bit of use in double battles, it's still extremely situational. You're better off just switching them in and having your foe waste a Pokémon for nothing.

Starting in the third generation, wild Geodude would have the tendency to use the move Mud Sport. Mud Sport is a move that weakens Electric-type moves. The Wallbanger? Geodude is a Rock/Ground Pokémon and Ground-Types are immune to Electric-Type attacks. In other words, the latter games have a Pokémon with a move that it has absolutely no need for. In team battles against a human (or NPC) opponent, the move is more useful in protecting partner Pokémon against Electric-Type attacks. But, a wild Pokémon using it in a 1-on-1 battle? Utterly useless.

The same happens with another move, Water Sport, which does the same against fire-type moves. The fact that water type Pokémon are not immune to fire-based attacks this time around does little to diminish the fact that both Mud Sport and Water Sport are next-to-useless outside of double battles, especially considering the classic, 1-on-1 Pokémon battles still make about ninety percent of the main series games' as of Generation V, aside from the Shadow Pokémon games.

Though it is still worth noting that one of the Pokémon that learns Water Sport, Budew, is a Grass-type and thus weak to Fire. It's the only exception to the rule, though. Zigzagoon and Linoone can learn Mud Sport to resist Electric, but this does nothing to mitigate weaknesses like with Budew.

Also Viola's Surskit in X and Y, which, while being neutrally affected by Fire, will likely only last long enough to set up ... for the much more powerful Vivillon, which is normally weak to Fire.

Unown, who is supposedly a mysteriously powerful psychic entity (despite having horrible stats in the game), is only able to learn "Hidden Power" (a move that is utterly hit-and-miss when it comes to type effectiveness). This is the real reason why Unown is little more than a useless "gimmick Pokemon". Rather than give it a decent moveset to balance out its absolutely horrible stats, Game Freak simply had it only learn one move that is an utter wild-card when it comes to how useful it is.

And in case you were thinking that a wild-card would be interesting, Hidden Power has a random element but that element is tied to the pokemon. So one Unknown using Hidden Power will always use the same variation of it. So even in the best case of you getting a Hidden Power that's as good as it can get, that unknown will only ever know that single attack making any gimmick fun you might have gone after using it in a battle or two.

Luvdisc is already The Scrappy among Pokémon fans due to its horrible stats. That being said, it has a huge wall-banger going against it regarding the one thing it used (emphasis on USED) to be good for. That of course, being that wild Luvdisc could occasionally be caught holding a Heart Scale (which could either be sold or traded in exchange for re-learning moves). However, since Generation IV, there are more (and easier) ways to obtain Heart Scales (Such as mining for them in Diamond, Platinum, and Pearl). This makes Luvdisc even more useless than ever before.

For bonus points, Alomomola, a Pokémon introduced in Gen V, looks like nothing more than a fancy version of Luvdisc, leading fans to speculate that it was an evolved form. Nope! The two near identical Pokémon are completely unrelated and Luvdisc is still completely useless.

Same goes for Tauros and Bouffalant.

In Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, one of the downloadable Pokémon World Tournament challenges, called "The Legendary World Tournament", allows certain Gym Leaders to have a certain legendary Pokémon on their team that matches their type of choice. Fantina gets Giratina in its Origin Forme. However, Giratina's held item is a Ghost Gem, rather than the Griseous Orb, the very item that transforms Giratina to its Origin Forme in the first place! This is The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard in one of the worst ways possible, seeing how Giratina's Origin Forme was a major point in Platinum version.

Not to mention that Giratina's Origin Forme has higher attack stats than its Altered Forme. Combine that with the Ghost Gem (a Ghost-type enhancing item) and its Ghost-typing adding STAB to its Ghost-type moves, then you have The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard at its finest. Lastly, Origin Forme Giratina has the Levitate ability, which means Ground-type moves against it are out of the picture, too.

Pokémon Colosseum already gets flack from some fans due to it having a very limited amount of Pokémon you can capture (only about 50). One of those Pokémon is a Plusle that's given to you by an NPC. Now, you'd think that this would finally be the chance for Plusle to shine. After all, every one of the battles in the game is a double-battle (IE: Two against two) and Plusle is made for double-battles. But, nope. Instead, the Plusle is horribly under-leveled (It's at Lv. 13 when all the other Pokémon you've battled/caught are at least Lv. 30 at that point), and it's ability is completely useless due to the game not having the Pokémon required for said ability to be activated. Said ability is "Plus" which increases Special Attack by 50% when battling alongside a Pokémon with the ability "Minus", which is Minun's ability (Again, Minun is NOT in the game). There were plans to include Minun in the game, but they were scrapped for some reason. This is a prime example of a Pokémon having the chance to be Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, only for it to be utterly wasted over poor choices in gaming design.

Dunsparce. Poor Dunsparce. On the one hand, it has an amazing movepool. Not only that, but it has the ability "Serene Grace" which increases the chance of an added effect of certain moves to occur (For example, if a Dunsparce uses Flamethrower, the chances of it burning the opponent are increased). You'd think that this would make for an amazing Pokemon. Alas, that's where the wallbanger comes in. You see, Dunsparce has horrible stats. Yes, Dunsparce could've been a great Pokémon to use if it wasn't so horribly weak. Granted, Dunsparce isn't utterly useless like other weak Pokémon, but it's definitely wasted potential at its finest.

With just a little luck, Dunsparce can actually use that Serene Grace ability to turn into a Lethal Joke Character in Heart Gold and Soul Silver. You can catch one before the first gym (1% encounter rate in Dark Cave), and it comes with the ability Serene Grace, which doubles the chances of a move's secondary effect taking place. It can learn Glare (75% chance of causing paralysis) and Headbutt (30% chance of causing the opponent to flinch,) which, combined with Serene Grace, will leave an opponent only a 30% chance of acting between paralysis and flinching. You can likely bash your way through the first half of the game or so just using Dunsparce thanks to this combination. Sadly, it does take a bit of luck to use well and its horrible stats will eventually render it useless in the mid-late game, meaning it will have you banging the wall eventually.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Farfetch'd. It's a rare (though you can breed it) Pokémon first introduced in the Gen. I games. It's also a prime example of bad programming choices screwing over its potential not once, but twice. First off, we have its original appearance in Red/Blue/Yellow (and Green in Japan). You see, the only way to get Farfetch'd was to trade a Spearow for it. You'd think you'd be getting a powerful one-of-a-kind (at the time) Pokémon, right? Nope. Compared to Spearow (which evolves into the rather useful Fearow), Farfetch'd has horrible stats (made even worse that it doesn't evolve). Skip ahead a few years, and we see that Farfetch'd isn't doing much better in the later games. The programmers tried to up Farfetch'd's potential by giving it a held item (in this case, they turned its trademark leek into a hold item) that boosts its critical-hit ratio. Remember what we said about it having horrible stats? It did little (if anything) to make it little more than an HM slave (since it can learn both Cut and Fly). Game Freak had this rare Pokémon (and one they seem to love promoting in various merchandise) that could've ranked up there with Snorlax and the Eeveelutions. But, instead of giving it good stats, or even a signature move, they instead make it horribly weak and give it an item that does almost nothing to help it.

Gen VI made it so Farfetch'd wasn't rare anymore, so that puts a bit of a cushion on the wall, and since it's before the first Gym (and likely before any other Flying-Types on your team have evolved yet), Farfetch'd can at least be of some use in Santalune Gym.

But then again you can catch Fletchling even earlier, which is fire and flying (Santalune Gym uses bug type) and it has a very high chance of it's ability becoming Flame Body when it evolves, making it the one of three Pokemon that can use Flame Body and fly (The other two are Moltres and Volcarona) saving a egg slot when hatching eggs and taking them to the stat judge.

Adding to the pile of Pokémon that Game Freak seems to arbitrarily hate, we've got Spinda. It has two gimmicks that seem to have some thought put into it, the fact that the patches on its face are variable, and that its moveset revolves around spinning and confusion moves. This by itself isn't terrible, but the powers that be decided to give it abysmal stats (60 all around), pretty much dooming it to Joke Character status or effort value fodder. Then Gen V comes along and its given an amazing new hidden ability in the form of Contrary: an ability that reverses stat changes, changing stat ups to stat downs and stat downs to stat ups. Unfortunately for poor Spinda, it doesn't learn any moves that can lower its stats. Things seemed to finally go its way when it was finally made available from the Dream World and one of the special moves available for it was Superpower (A fighting move that lowers the user's attack and defense when used. In Contrary Spinda's hands, it would raise it). However, the ones you get from the Dream World are the only ones with said moves, since you can't actually breed or move tutor the move onto Spinda. Therefore further screwing over an already screwed over Pokémon. Also made even worse that the Dream World feature has been shut down since Gen VI premiered.

Made even worse in Gen 6 when they introduce a new Pokémon in Malamar (gets Contrary as a normal ability and Superpower as a level up move) who can do just that and has the stats to back it up.

Surskit and Masquerain. Surskit is a fairly weak pokemon put it had something special in that it was a bug/water type, in other words it was a water type that wasn't weak to grass and could even fight back against it same goes with fire in relation to its bug typing. It was still weak to rock but could again fight back against it as a water type and it can learn moves such as ice beam for flying types which would leave electric as its only particularly meaningful weakness. Again, it was very weak but it'd be great upon evolution! Cool looking scary-face? Intimidate ability? So this has gotta be at least a cool pokemon with a sweet typing to take with you, heck its name is Masque RAIN and... it's a bug/flying type. A useless, bog-standard bug/flying type that nerfs it's best gimmick, robs it of a unique type combination, gives it a heap of extra weaknesses while ditching none of the ones it already had and making rock even worse. Just... WHY?

Dark-type still doesn't have a gym as of Generation VI, even though this generation fixed a few gaping holes that have persisted for an eternity (Flareon now knows Flare Blitz, and Poison-type attacks are now super effective against two types, etc). And Game Freak has the nerve to add yet another Fighting-Type specialist. If it weren't for providing the Mega Ring and having more involvement above the others, Korrina would have been the most hated Gym Leader this generation.

Sky Battles are battles that only Flying-Types and Pokémon with the Levitate ability can participate in. However, only Pokémon that are flying/levitating in their animations can participate. This means that Pokémon like Pidgey and Tailow cannot participate, due to sitting on the ground in their animation.

There's more: Haunter can participate, but Gengar cannot.

In Gen. 6, there is a scene where the villains allows the player character to choose between pressing two buttons: one is the power button to their ultimate weapon which will also slaughter the Pokémon Team Flare has been collecting to power it, and the other is a harmless decoy, promising that if the protagonist proves to have the power to "decide the future", they'll give up their plans. If you guess correctly, The Dragon pulls an I Lied/Loophole Abuse and powers on the machine anyway. The spoiler is not the Wallbanger. The Wallbanger is that the obvious third option of not choosing and making sure no one else can press the button either is not a possibility the game lets you take.

In Generation 4, there was originally supposed to have been an event item released to players called the Azure Flute which would allow players to capture Arceus in the Hall of Origin. However it never was and eventually the reason as to why was confirmed by Junichi Masuda in an interview as being too confusing for players. The reason for this being a Wallbanger is because of how rare Arceus is considered in current games and because of the wide range of help sites and even fliers made prior that dedicated themselves to explaining to trainers how to use event items in Pokémon games to avoid said confusion. Now Arceus is near unavailable in Generation 4 aside from prior events, cheats and hacks, and possibly the Global Trading Station.

If you hacked the Azure Flute into Diamond/Pearl/Platinum to catch Arceus, Generation 6's Pokémon Bank will not recognize it thus will not allow you to transfer it to X/Y.

The pacing of Gen. 6's mandatory Evil Gang subplot was absolutely messed up. Prior to beating the seventh Gym, the game spoonfeeds you as little as possible. There's two mook fights before and after the second Gym, an admin fight after the 4th Gym, and then another Admin fight after the 6th gym, and one last admin fight at the ice dungeon between Gyms 6 and 7. Then once you beat the 7th Gym, they stuff a Boss fight, a sliding/teleporting tile dungeon, and a bunch of exposition down your throat, immediately followed by a long slog of Mook battles in between two more Boss fights, then the subplot is over. This was probably the worst handled Gang subplot in the series.

Diamond and Pearl had a similar issue with its pacing and may be even worse in some regards. The final battle against Team Galactic took place between the seventh and eighth gyms, leaving the rest of the game effectively with no story. Basically, the game ended up having two climaxes, neither of them having their fullest impact because of the other.

The pacing in X and Y in general was pretty poor when really looked at. There's an unusually large gap (a first time player could easily spend hours on it) between the first and second gyms, after which they throw gyms at you in almost every town.

Similarly to the above, the subplot with AZ was horrendously handled. Billed as a major character, he ultimately appears a grand total of three times. The first is a pointless cameo with barely any dialogue, the second appearance crams what could have been several hours worth of backstory explanation into a five minute scene, and the third and final one has him challenge you as the Post Final Boss with absolutely no buildup or explanation for why he's fixated on you. And then he completely vanishes from the game. What really makes this sting is that Game Freak was clearly trying to make AZ a parallel to N, considering his story, but while N appeared many times throughout Black and White, each encounter giving us more detail on who he is and why we should care about him, AZ only has three scenes, one of which is ultimately pointless aside from "Hey! Notice this guy!" Its almost as if he was meant to appear more often in the game, but these scenes were ultimately cut from the game...

The above instances, combined with an unusually high amount of glitches and bugs on release (Pokémon turning black and white for no reason, the game crashing if you save in Lumiose City), inconsistent design choices (your Rivals and Team Flare get unique 3D battle models, but Gym Leaders, the Elite Four and even the freaking Champion just get the same static, 2D images you'd associate with normal trainers), plot threads that are presented as being important but ultimately go nowhere (the feud between the mayor of Camphirer Town and the owner of Parfume Palace, the entirety of the Pokémon Village, the history of Mega Evolution, etc), and arguably the shortest postgame of any of the Pokémon games has led some people to suspect that X and Y were considerably more rushed compared to previous gens.

To be fair with the glitches, the Japanese versions were always plagued with them, and the international release months later would then have a chance to get rid of a good chunk of them. This was a world wide release though, which means that the entire world gets to suffer with glitches that would have normally been smoothed out first

In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, you can encounter a wild Spiritomb during the Sea Mauville quest. This is the only wild Spiritomb in the game, so of course it has to come knowing the move Memento, which harshly lowers Attack and Special Attack...and also KOs the user. One could just save before encountering the Spiritomb and reset if it uses Memento, but many players encountering the Spiritomb and wanting to catch it might not know that it has that move.

In the post game Delta Episode of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, Zinnia breaks a vital component of the rocket that's going to be used to warp away a meteorite heading for Hoenn. Then she chews out the cast for the possibility that the meteorite might hit an alternate Earth and leaves without offering up an alternate solution. Granted she's right and there is an alternate solution in Mega Rayquaza but she never shares this and if not for the Player Character having an extra meteorite shard, her plan would have failed. It would have been better for her to steal the part and have the player chase her down to retrieve it. Or for her to explain her solution and ask the scientists to hold off on their idea until she gives hers a try.

Other Examples

For the trading card game, the ridiculous support basic Pokémon have. Evolutions were already at an obvious disadvantage. They lacked the speed that basics had and needed more cards to get them into play. Come Black and White, there are basic Pokémon with HP on par or even higher than evolutions. To make matters worse, there were a few cards that only benefit basic Pokémon. At this point, there was no reason to run anything other than basics. Considering that most of the cards printed were part of an evolution line, most of the cards you'd pull in packs would be useless in competitive play.

Fortunately, they are in the process of fixing this. The most prominent being the Nerf to Pokémon Catcher and the rules forbiding the player who goes first from attacking (preventing donks). That said, basics are still pretty damn powerful.

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